Solo Travel

Understanding and designing for the experiences of solo travelers in the US

Timeline

Deliverables

Context

UW MHCI+D User Research Class



Team

Overview

Over 10 weeks, my team and I interviewed five solo travelers with varying solo travel experiences to understand their motivations and challenges when traveling solo. After learning that solo travelers like to use their trips to engage with their environment more, we designed and evaluated an audio journal created in order to help travelers use their phones less while gathering memorable audio clips from different places over the course of their trip. 

My Role

UX Researcher

As this was a user research class, my team and I worked together on the entire generative and evaluative research process. Individually, I:

Background

With solo travel on the rise post-pandemic and my team's shared interest in travel, we found ourselves at an opportune time to gain an understanding of the life of a solo traveler. One article of literature specifically notes that women and millennials are taking more and more solo trips. 

More Secondary Research Findings:

Objective

Our secondary research findings motivated us to dig deeper into the overall experiences of a solo traveler - their motivations, challenges, and behaviors - to discover what opportunities for intervention exist. Personally, I wanted to learn about a world that I had never been a part of, and uncover the needs that exist within it.

Assumptions

Going into this project, I had the assumption that I was going to hear solo travelers say they were concerned for their safety during solo trips and that they needed some type of device to help mitigate their fear (I was wrong). This assumption was rooted in my own concerns for solo trips and was mitigated by talking to actual solo travelers.



Study Overview

Research Questions

Generative Research

To answer our research questions, we conducted 5 semi-structured interviews with solo travelers in order to gain insight into their first-hand experiences. The participants were mostly recruited via personal network from our team but because I did not know any solo travelers, I utilized social media and sent messages to solo travel influencers explaining the background of our research and inviting them to be a participant. 


Participants

Our secondary research findings influenced us to identify our ideal participants as women or millennials that have taken a solo trip out of the United States in 2021 or later. To ensure this, I created our screener.

The solo traveling experiences of our 5 participants varied greatly, with them taking anywhere from 1 to over 20 solo trips. Each interview was ~30 minutes long on average, and consisted of 1 facilitator and 1 notetaker of which I was in both positions. 

How many solo trips have you taken?

What type(s) of solo trips have you taken?

Interviews

We created a session guide with four main questions to ask participants in order to leave room for probing questions that emerge during the session. We planned to ask participants to make a mind map at the beginning of each interview, however because 4 out of 5 interviews were conducted remotely, were able to collect one mind map from a participant. For the rest of the interviews, I had the idea of asking participants about their top considerations when taking a solo trip in order to generate a researcher-mediated mind map.

Why use mind-mapping?

Mind mapping served to help us understand what was most important to solo travelers in a creative way. It gave participants the ability to reflect on their experiences and help us understand their mental model of solo travel.

Research Artifacts

A mind map that a participant created.


A mind-map that I created while talking to a solo traveler.


Affinity mapping of important quotes from interviews.

Major Findings:

1. The sense of autonomy when traveling solo is freeing. We found that solo travelers like to make their own decisions which steers them away from group trips that require multiple opinions.

2. Travel planning involves leaving space for spontaneity. We discovered that solo travelers like to leave room in their itineraries for unplanned activities.




3. Solo travelers can be influenced by the stigma of a destination. We found that solo travelers like to challenge the perception of danger associated with a destination by the public.

4. Being alone on a trip can inspire community engagement. We found that solo travel can spark a desire to connect with locals, the environment, or other travelers at their destination.

Based on the finding that solo travelers desire to disconnect from the world and connect with their environment, we generated this design challenge:

How might we enable solo travelers to engage more deeply with their destination?

Other design challenges:

From our insights, we also generated the following design challenges:


Why did we choose this design challenge?

We chose to focus on helping solo travelers engage more deeply with their destination because we found that disconnecting from the weight of the world was something many solo travelers liked to do during their trips. This disconnection from other people's opinions, desires, and needs allows them to fully immerse themselves in their environment and the culture that exists there. We wanted to design something that can empower and enable them to focus on their trip, and not on the noise of the world.


“There are also times where I definitely want to take a break [from what] I'm currently doing. At the time, it could be school, work, time to recharge.” - P2


“I also didn't want it to be too crowded so I could get a lot of time to myself, just to be there and not think about all these people.” - P5

Response

We responded to this question with a wearable audio journal where solo travelers can gather audio clips from different places as they travel. The two main components are:


When turned on, the wearable records sounds from the traveler’s surroundings. After clips are collected, the app compiles the audio clips and produces a single, auto-generated clip with the option of integrating music and photos taken along the way.

Evaluative Research

Participants

We recruited six participants via our personal network, and their backgrounds varied from taking between 0 and 10 solo trips.


Concept Testing

I created the testing session guide to evaluate our concept and as a team we conducted six concept tests with low-fidelity wearable paper watch prototypes, Figma wireframes, and a video simulation with the goal of understanding whether people desired the product, what they liked/disliked, and how they would improve it to fit their needs. 

Concept Testing Session

I first asked participants to use the audio journal during a simulated solo travel experience in Brazil. The simulation invited participants to imagine themselves as a solo traveler in Rio and watch a series of immersive walking tours while using our prototype to record audio sounds, and talking aloud about their thoughts and feelings towards the concept. Then, I chose to use semi-structured interviews to conduct an in-depth feedback session in order to understand their experience with the concept. Our feedback sessions were rich and the raw data was analyzed through affinity mapping. The major findings from this study can be found below.


Video Simulation:

This video was used to immerse participants into a solo traveling experience in Rio, Brazil. The videos walkthrough Iguaco Falls, Ipanema Beach, and Rio Carnaval. Participants were asked to pretend to record audio from each location as they might in real life.

Research Artifacts: 

Affinity map of quotes from feedback session.

Major Findings:

1. The use case of the audio journal can extend beyond solo travel. We found that participants saw other uses for the audio journal, such as recording at a concert, theater, or carnival.





2. Fancy gadgets can attract unwanted attention during solo travels. We realized that solo travelers already have safety concerns while traveling solo, and that having a fancy piece of hardware on their wrist could add to their worry.


“For some places like Brazil where security and crime is a concern, wearing new technology on your wrist might not be best safety-wise.” - P6



3. Users want to customize their experience with the product. Participants vocalized their desires to have adjustable settings and features that would make the product easier to use in certain contexts, which is in line with our generative research finding that solo travelers like to maintain a sense of autonomy


4. Participants questioned the use of audio in comparison to other media types like photo and video. When users were reflecting on their experiences, many raised questions about whether this product only recorded audio and whether it could record photos and videos too.


“Even if it was an app, if I wanted to take a video I couldn’t do both. I would prioritize taking photos or videos.” - P5

Next Steps:

Limitations of the study:

Generative Research


Evaluative Research

Reflections


Don’t assume problems - let generative research do its job. Going into the project, I had the idea of focusing on safety within solo trips. Thankfully, I was advised not to go into generative research with a list of questions on safety not knowing if it was important to people. The topics that are important to people will come up in conversation, as long as we give them the room - and they did!






Customize your sessions to your participants when possible.            I interviewed someone who was currently on a solo trip outside of the country, in a different time zone, and had unstable wifi which led to our call dropping. I ended up sending them a survey to make up for the last half. Looking back, I would have liked to provide the option to do an interview through a simple phone call which would have required less internet stability than a video call.







My team is my greatest asset!     On a team, we are all depending on each other to see things that the other person misses. When I notetake for someone else, they are depending on me to catch things that they can’t in the moment while facilitating a session. Also, when affinity mapping, our different perspectives worked together to uncover a myriad of themes that turned into useful findings.






Prepare intensely but anticipate changes and remain flexible. Scheduling participants from social media was difficult because they have no prior connection with our team and while many responded, only a few filled out our screener and even fewer scheduled and showed up to an interview. I count all of these experiences as a part of the process and know that it is helping me in my journey towards becoming a better researcher.